“An identified causal factor in the accident was the crew's commuting induced fatigue.”
All pilots in the US commute, highly paid ones and . . . . lowly paid ones. The most common commuters are the highly paid UPS and FDX pilots who have fatigue issues as a result. Pilots commute mainly because airlines these days re assign bases so frequently that pilots get tired of moving.
The Colgan crash did not occur as a result of income levels.
“Tell us what you really think!”
I think my posts pretty much take care of that. But as I sit here in the lounge at JFK admiring the leggy blond on the chair opposite I have time to kill, so here is what I think:
Qantas is a reasonable airline, with moderate service levels and a good safety record. It is a legacy carrier, which means it is trying to respond to new market problems using old answers. The business model is no longer in tune with the modern airline market and it is saddled with highly unionized high cost labor. It is not an agile business.
The first thing Qantas employees and in particular pilots, must ask themselves is: why am I being paid a premium, a premium, which I think has been clearly established in the last several pages of this forum. It appears from reading this thread that the vocal Qantas pilots belief is that a premium salary should be paid simply because they think the business can afford it. This is not how a business should be run and probably not how Qantas will be run in the future. It’s not how you buy a car or sell a house.
For most of its history Qantas has been sheltered from the true market and like most legacy carriers has operated with a lot less focus on labor cost than non legacy competitors. Indeed cockpit labor was not considered expensive when the company’s main focus was developing a worldwide jet service in an industry still finding its feet, especially considering that an alternative source of technical labor had not yet developed. There was nothing to benchmark the cost of technical staff against. But these things have changed, the technical skills to fly an airliner can be sourced more easily and Qantas is no longer operating within the bubble that Government ownership once provided.
Qantas is not alone. South African, Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Iberia, Olympic, Alitalia, Swissair, Sabena, Aerolineas, Aer Lingus . . . . The list goes on of national carriers that have struggled to adapt to a privatized, competitive world. Every Legacy carrier in the US has gone bankrupt. All of the above named carriers have either been renationalized or faced serious threats to their very existence and only survived following radical restructure and financial aid that mock the very market principles by which you are expecting to be paid.
Qantas has ridden a wave of luck for several decades. The first shot in the arm was the merging of Qantas with Australian Airlines and the debt restructure that resulted; the second was the collapse of Ansett. Both events permitted Qantas to delay any labor reforms that were becoming more important as each year passed.
Qantas has not been blessed with effective management for some time. The lack of focus on labor costs and the poor strategy behind setting up Jetstar HK are just two examples but important ones nonetheless.
Qantas, like most large businesses is a complex system. It is impossible to manage a complex system without significant waste of resources. It is very difficult to manage a complex system with a completely effective reporting structure. Companies such as Apple and Microsoft and Delta appear to be well-oiled machines when viewed from afar but inside are held together on a daily basis with spit and gum.
This inefficiency does not provide a justification for premium salaries, as some here have suggested. In fact quite the opposite.
Management salaries are another often bleated about subject amongst most employee groups, particularly yours. Ironically, market forces directly drive the CEO’s compensation: there is no CEO union to muddy the waters or inflate his conditions through job building. His salary is what the market supports and is not unreasonable considering the size of the business and the task at hand particularly in comparison with others in similar roles.
My comments here are not in any way intended to offend pilots or wider Qantas employees. Some posters here don’t like the argument I present and that is fair enough. Those rational folk will respond with rational answers, the others will use terms like “troll” or “management stooge” in failing to form a reasoned argument and this is a shame as the future of Qantas depends a lot more on you than on me.
Good luck to all Qantas staff.